Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, wife of Boston bomber, refuses to talk to FBI; how much does she know?

From suburban teen to bomber’s wife…but how much did she know?

Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, the widowed wife of now-dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, still hasn’t talked to police or the FBI about her husband—because she has refused.

Katherine Russell has been staying at her parents’ home in Rhode Island since last week. The FBI showed up at the house on April 21, but she didn’t want to talk to them and didn’t leave the house.

Her lawyer, Amato DeLuca, did most of the public speaking.

“I spoke to them, that’s all I can say right now,” DeLuca told the Associated Press, in reference to the police visit. “We’re deciding what we want to do and how we want to approach this.”

Katherine Russell Tsarnaev is maintaining that she knows nothing about the bombings, however.

“When this was going on, she was working and had been working all week to support her family,” DeLuca told the AP.

Information about Russell’s life is coming out by the boatload, and it appears several areas of her life were heavily influenced by her late-husband Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Here is what we know:

She grew up in rural Massachusetts with her picture-esque family with her two sisters and father (doctor and Yale graduate) and her mother (social services worker, according to Facebook).

According to former teachers and friends, Katherine Russell did well in school and was a talented artist.

“The reason why I remember her is she was very nice and very smart,” said Amos Paine, her art teacher for all four years of high school. “She was ready to learn.”

Interestingly, Katherine didn’t seem to be interested in religion at the time.

“There was none of that with her,” Paine said. “She was neutral.”

Russell attended Suffolk University and majored in communications. It was during her time at the college that she met Tamerlan Tsarnaev at a nightclub, according to her lawyer.

The couple got married in 2010, according to the Huffington Post, but not before Russell converted to Islam.

Now, questions are being raised as to how much Russell knew about the illegal activities of her husband. Their apartment was reportedly small and cramped, and it would have been hard for Tsarnaev to hide anything from her.